Leadership & Strategy

Leaders have been in demand since the beginning of civilization. Today, companies actively recruit, develop, and promote leaders and business schools tell us that leadership is a core competency. But the explanation of what it takes to be a leader is fuzzy and there aren't many practical methods for measuring or assessing leadership.

Businesses want leaders who think and act strategically but business strategy itself isn't well understood. Some think strategy is what a strategic committee does. Some say that strategy is innovation. Some believe strategy can be set once every 3 years and shelved.

These two concepts, leadership and strategy, are tightly linked if poorly understood. There are leaders at every level of an organization and the best leaders use strategy to guide their decision-making and to direct, inform, and motivate their organizations.

Bibliography

Our View

The usual description of leadership is missing the sense that a leader is, by nature, pursuing a goal or seeking a result. Strategy is the link between the leader and his or her goal. It's the road map, the route to the result.

Leadership and strategy are inseparable, two sides of a coin. Business leaders are like other leaders. They pursue business outcomes and strategy is their means of getting results.

Leaders, no matter their level in the organization are after results. In other words, they are all pursuing a strategy even if it is not explicit. Developing leaders by developing their use of strategy is what LeadingStrategically is all about.

The Model

We believe that strategy and leadership are inseparable, that both are practiced and adjusted continuously to suit business need.

The LeadingStrategically Capability Model describes in practical, observable, and actionable terms the dimensions of strategic leadership. The model is a matrix used to pinpoint proficiency in the area of strategic leadership based on behaviors.

This model does not rework traditional approaches for developing strategy. It fits with the traditional mission, vision, values framework and other approaches. The model describes how leaders effectively use strategy not how they make it.